Private Jet from Miami to Marsh Harbour

Most parties come for the harbour first. It is the deepest and best sheltered water in the Abacos, which is why the charter boats, the fuel docks and the provisioning for the whole island group sit here and not strung out along the chain. For a party arriving by jet that is the practical point: whatever is meeting you, a captain, a boat, a week of groceries for a house on a cay, is already tied up in this harbour. A yacht transfer has you alongside soon after landing, and a dock pickup works the same way from the marina side. The waterfront is also the part of the day you can walk: restaurants and marina bars sit around the water, so lunch and a boat afternoon need no car between them, and the evening ends where it began, looking out over the boats.

The cays most people picture when they think of the Abacos lie across the Sea of Abaco from the town, about twenty minutes by ferry. That is what makes Marsh Harbour the base: the villages are an afternoon out and back, not another flight. Elbow Cay has Hope Town and its striped lighthouse from the 1860s, and the village runs on golf carts. Man-O-War Cay is the boatbuilding cay. Great Guana Cay is the long beach and the beach bar. Each has its own jet route from Miami, Elbow Cay by private jet among them, and each lands here first. The last ferry back leaves earlier than most expect, so a cay day is planned from the return backwards. Hope Town is the one asked for most, and Hope Town by private jet sets out how that day runs.

If the trip is about fish rather than beaches, the Marls are the reason. They are the shallow mangrove flats along the west side of Great Abaco, hundreds of square miles of ankle deep water and mangrove islands, and they hold bonefish. They lie on the far side of the island from the harbour, so a fishing day starts early and runs on the tide rather than the clock. Parties book bonefishing and flats access with a guide and a skiff arranged ahead. Rods and gear travel with you; say so when you send the date, so the bags are planned around them rather than found at the ramp. The flats draw anglers who never set foot on a beach: the water is clear enough to see the fish before you cast. The guides work from town, so a night in Marsh Harbour before the fishing day is the usual shape.

The Sea of Abaco is the band of protected water between Great Abaco and its line of barrier cays, and it is why this island group is a sailing destination at all. The cays take the Atlantic swell, so the water inside stays workable on days the ocean side is not. For a visitor that makes the boat afternoon dependable: short hops, sheltered anchorages and a reef on the ocean side of the cays for snorkelling. Add water toys if the afternoon belongs to the water, or a beach picnic on a sandbar that dries at low tide. The boat is booked with the flight and waits at the marina. Most visitors see this water from a boat chartered in Marsh Harbour, and that is the reason the flight ends here rather than on a cay.

Marsh Harbour is a working town rather than a resort strip, and for a party staying a week that is the advantage. The grocery stores, the hardware, the banks and the doctors for the whole island group are here, so a stay on a cay is stocked here first. It also has the only traffic light in the Out Islands, which locals mention before you ask. Parties who want a table rather than a boat book a fly and dine day, and ground transport or a meet and greet is arranged with the flight rather than found on arrival. The centre is compact: the harbour front, the shops and the ferry dock sit close enough that an hour between lunch and the boat stays an hour. A family renting a house across the water does the shopping here on the way in, with the car at the aircraft and the ferry after.

North of town the Great Abaco Highway runs up the island to Treasure Cay, a beach and a marina on the main island rather than a cay, about thirty miles by road. For a party based in Marsh Harbour it is a day out by car, not a second trip. The drive runs through pine forest most of the way, and the beach at the end is the long crescent of sand the Abacos are known for. From the ferry dock beyond it, Green Turtle Cay and the loyalist village of New Plymouth are a short crossing, and the cay has its own private jet route from Miami. Which end of the island the week is built around is simply a question of where the house or the boat is.

South of town the highway runs into pine forest and ends at Abaco National Park, set up to protect the breeding ground of the Bahama parrot. It is the only parrot in the Bahamas that nests in the ground, in hollows in the limestone, and early morning or dusk is when the birds are loud enough to find. The park counts more than two hundred bird species, and the eastern fork of the road goes on to the Hole-in-the-Wall lighthouse at the southern tip of the island. The road is rough and the trip is half a day rather than an hour, so it belongs to an overnight. It is the quiet side of Great Abaco, pine country rather than water, and the one day of a stay here that needs a car and an early start. A guide who knows where the parrots feed is worth asking for when you send the dates.

A private jet from Miami to Marsh Harbour can be the first leg rather than the whole trip. The same aircraft carries on to Grand Bahama, Nassau, Andros or Staniel Cay and the Exumas, which turns one island into a wider Bahamas day. Parties that fly on usually spend a night or two here first, stocked and settled, and then take the aircraft south. The border is already behind them, so the next leg stays inside the Bahamas. The full guide sits on the Marsh Harbour destination page, the packaged version is the Marsh Harbour getaway day trip, the whole island group is the Abacos and the rest of the chain is on the Bahamas destinations page.